Tenth Tacoma Homicide of 2016: Terry Webb

On October 7th, Friday evening around 6:45pm the dinner rush was going strong at Tacoma’s legendary Frisko Freeze. 26-year-old Terry Webb approached two men sitting in a car in the parking lot. He produced a gun and attempted to rob the two men. He was unsuccessful. One of the two men in the care was also armed. The man in the car shot Terry. A friend of his drove him to the hospital where he later died from his gunshot wound.

This is the tenth Tacoma homicide this year. No charges are expected to be filed. I have been chronicling homicides in Tacoma for ten years now. In all that time, I have never seen charges filed in a situation where someone is protecting themselves, or their property. Robbery and burglary may not be death penalty level crimes, but if your intended victim is armed and kills you, if you’re in Tacoma, your killer will not likely be charged with a crime.

From a certain standpoint, this makes perfect sense. People should be allowed to protect and defend themselves. That is understandable. However, there is another aspect to this. The person who was Terry Webb cannot be summed up in his last actions. Like all of us, he had friends. He had family. He may have made bad decisions, but who among us has not? I am not trying to make Terry out to be someone better or worse than he was. I did not know him and can only share what I found from what little research I could find and how I feel about people in general.

I also know from talking to others who have been in similar situations that shooting another person is no simple thing. There is suffering that goes with taking a life. I understand that and do my best not to vilify what had to have been a difficult choice. But a killer’s life goes on. I choose not to focus on that in these posts because I prefer to focus on the victim who has no more stories to tell.

If you happen to be a friend or family member of Terry Webb and have a photo you would like me to use for this post, please email it to jackcameronis@gmail.com.

As always, the comments section is moderated by me and reserved for those who knew Terry and might want to share memories or thoughts about him.